Just this morning, negotiators in Philadelphia reached agreement on the form of a new collective bargaining pact. The details aren’t public yet as the agreement will go to the rank-and-file of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers for ratification on Thursday. But bank on some changes on the teacher-quality front, especially for compensation and evaluation.
Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has clearly put teacher-quality issues at the top of her agenda, and some independent pressure groups have been focusing on the state of teacher evaluations there.
It’s possible that we’ll also see some of AFT pres Randi Weingarten’s “signature touches” in the contract. (See the latter half of this post for details on what I mean by that.)
I’ll have more details for you as we get them.